Port 25 - Communications from the open source community at Microsoft

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1. blufrog said:

   Hi Dan,
   Good interview. I have a quick question for you. Will Visual Studio Express ever actually contain all the Express Editions in a single interface, like the full version of Visual Studio does? It would be nice to rapidly change from one language too another without having to quit and start the other language all the time.
   
   Regards,
   Robert

   posted at 04:16PM 06/11/2006
2. nektar said:

   The Express products are a very good idea however, I will not install them on my computer because I don't want to have to install multiple programs in order to get the ability to program in more than 1 language. I as well as others use VB and C++ or C# so the ability to switch between more than one language would have been helpful. On the other hand, I will not pay to get the Standard or the Professional Edition just for the ability to switch between languages. This is because the actual issue is the multiple installations of the Express products that are necessary in order to use the multiple languages that is the bad thing about it and that thing alone cannot be considered a feature that Standard or Professional has extra.
   Q: What does Standard offer that Express do not?
   A: Less installations.
   Please differenciate your products with more important features than the feature called inconvenience and then we shall buy them.

   posted at 01:00PM 06/12/2006
3. danielfe said:

   Good questions,
   
   
   Question #1 - Multi-language support for Express
   
   Multi-language support is supported with Visual Web Developer Express, you can create a Web page in VB and have it call another Web page in C# all in the same Web App.
   
   Multi-language support, however, isn't available in the client products, VB, C#, C++, and J# and it hasn't been something that we've been getting requests for from our target audiences (beginners, hobbyists, students) to add. We have, as you all suggested, considered combining the VB, C#, J# products into one product in the future and, using the same naming conventions for the Web product, would call it something like Visual Windows Developer Express. The combination would make it easier to understand which product to use:
   
   1) Visual Web Developer Express - For Web
   2) Visual Windows Developer Express - For Windows
   3) Visual C++ Express - For platform development
   
   As shown above C++ Express, would still be a standalone product as the key features customers are looking for there are in the academic space (lightweight IDE, good debugging support) We have not, however looked at combining C++ with the VB/C#/J# products for a couple of reasons, audience, simplicity and size.
   
   1) Audience - For C++ at least, the #1 customer downloading/registering the product is from academia. The reason for this is that C++ is still the #1 language used in higher ed and students/faculty enjoy having a simple, lightweight editor with great debugging support. The customers aren't asking for adding support for VB/C#/J#.
   2) Simplicity - The key tenet of all the Express products is its simplicity. They are very focused products and adding more features makes it harder, not easier for beginners. To overuse the saying, less is more.
   
   3) Size - At 50MB including the .NET Framework, Express is small and something you can easily download. We continually get email asking us to make Express smaller so folks on dial-up can download the product. I'm unsure of the value of adding an additional 70-100MB to add C++ support or even the J# redistributable for the VB developer that just wants to get started.
   
   Finally, as stated above, you can still have multi-language support, it's just not as convenient as having it all-in-one product.
   
   In short, combining some of the products is something we have considered.

   posted at 01:32PM 06/12/2006
4. danielfe said:

   Hi Nektar,
   
   It seems your question is what differentiates Express from Standard. The reality is that there is quite a bit of differentiation beyond client multi-language support. You can find a full list at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/compare/
   
   
   From the list, I see these as big differentiators between Express and Standard:
   
   - Extensibility: The ability to plug-in source control, modeling tools, unit testing, load testing and any other Visual Studio add-in is incredibly valuable. To take one of these, not having source control is like having a car that doesn't have reverse. You're fine, until you're not.
   
   - MSI Deployment: When you need to do a more complex or have more fine-grained control for installing software,  having setup and deployment projects are key.
   
   - Mobile development: You'll need Visual Studio Standard to create mobile applications.
   

   posted at 01:41PM 06/12/2006
5. nektar said:

   From the differences you mentioned between Express and Standard:
   1. Add-ins: I agree the ability to use add-ins is very valuable although in my opinion the ability to write add-ins should have been available in Express as well. There are competitors' products that have plug-in ability free of charge without the need to pay 400$.
   2. MSI packages: I disagree since the deployment package creation abilities of Visual Studio Standard and Professional are by no means complete and even enough. Many software developers are forced to use better 3rd party installer creation packages like Install Shield. One of the best Windows Installer XML WIX project is even free why again why should I pay 400$ to get standard.
   3. Mobile applications: I don't understand why a student or hobyist programmer should not have the ability to create mobile applications. Visual Mobile Developer Express perhaps?
   4. Overall the above features should not have been the differenciators amongst Express and Standard as they are either surpassable (Installer packages) or should not have been there as they make no sense (like lack of mobile support). Don't you seriously think that by removing the ability to run or create add-ins from Express you automatically remove your best source of free add-in writers. Look at eg. Eclipse and the numerous add-ins available for it. Who wrote these add-ins? Providing add-in creation abilities to a free product should help create a community around it. Where can I find good and useful add-ins for VS?
   In addition, the lack of mobile support is not a serious factor to make me buy Standard. For me, as well as I guess for many others, they would buy Standard simply because it has everything combined in a single package and not because of the other reasons you mention. So, I disagree with you that mobile support and installer package creation are the features that would make us buy Standard or that they are the features worth 400$. Add-ins support is a mistake to not be included in Express as it makes the small add-in developer community even smaller and it transforms it from a collection of free add-ins to a smaller collection of expensive ones.

   posted at 03:17AM 06/13/2006
6. danielfe said:

   Hey Nektar,
   
   To your point about mobile development, yes, we have considered an Express Mobile development tool and this is something we've gotten feedback from customers that we should add and I definitely think it's a match for the Express target market - beginners, hobbyists, and students. The challenge here is that it is quite a bit of work to factor just the mobile tools and its dependencies into its own own product. It's not impossible though, we just need to build a case for it and customer feedback always helps with that :)
   
   For #4, it's important to remember that the ability to create add-ins is not a goal for Express. Our goal is to grow the number of beginner, hobbyist, and student developers. The VSIP SDK is 185MB and adding the ability to consume or create add-ins adds a huge size (2-3x+ the current size) for something that our *target* customers aren't asking for.  We get more requests from Express customers to integrate the DirectX SDK (for gamers) or the Platform SDK (for C++) than to include add-ins.  Also, VS Standard is $299 ($199 upgrade), not $400. To be clear here, I'm not saying we don't need a better solution for add-in developers, but rather that the add-in community and the Express target audience are different customers with different needs. Express is all about simplicity and the "less is more" design goal.  
   
   Thanks,
   -Dan

   posted at 12:56PM 06/13/2006
7. danielfe said:

   As some of you have asked, I thought I would add links to the vendors that did both the media production and development of SubservientProgrammer.
   
   Media Production - http://www.352media.com
   Development - http://www.sharplogic.com and http://www.3leafdev.com

   posted at 12:58PM 06/13/2006